Aeternum Vale
by Neko Kuroban
Summary: At the climax of the fourth book, Briar fails to save Rosethorn. AU.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Sandry had soft hands. Soft, lily-white hands scented by the oils with which she drew runes. Soft hands with which she pulled – dragged – him away from the cold, still body lying motionless upon the narrow bed.

Briar had never so much wanted to hit

(_her_)

anyone, to lash out and strike, to scream until his throat rebelled and ruptured. Tears seared his jade eyes, tears of helplessness, of fury, of anguish. Sandry did not attempt to embrace him, causing a minute bud of gratitude to unfurl, one he quickly shoved away. He did not _want_ her to touch him, not yet. The thought of someone restraining him was like a vine, laden with sharp thorns, creeping up his legs, twining about his hips, his ribcage, whispering its adoration, suffocating him. Tendrils sinking beneath stone, pulling – ripping – apart without mercy.

"I know how you feel," she whispered, and something in his heart swelled, before shattering into a hundred thousand pieces of tarnished effulgence.


	2. Chapter One

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****Title**: Aeternum Vale  
**Series**: _Circle of Magic_  
**Chapter**: Installment 2 out of ?  
**Rating**: PG – a wee bit harsh language. Not as harsh as in the original draft, however.  
**Feedback**: I'm probably the biggest review whore you'll ever encounter.  
**Dedication**: For all the reviewers who convinced me to continue this.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own it, nor do I claim to.  
**Notes**: The first chapter was probably better…: Aeternum Vale: Installment 2 out of ?: PG – a wee bit harsh language. Not as harsh as in the original draft, however.: I'm probably the biggest review whore you'll ever encounter.: For all the reviewers who convinced me to continue this.: I don't own it, nor do I claim to.: The first chapter was probably better…**

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**Aeternum Vale**

**Chapter One**

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_"Anger is a killing thing: it kills he who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before - it takes something from him."_

"Ah, here you are." Niko's light tone only served to cause the dragon that had settled into Briar's furnace heart to stir.

"Sod off, Niko."

His teacher's stern gray gaze revealed that Niko had no intention of complying. Briar stole a glance at the older man. Though still dressed to guard himself against the blue pox, he looked more like a wealthy magistrate or lesser noble than a mage. There were no less than seven runes against disease written into his outer cloak, and when the boy shifted his long-fringed gaze away, he caught a flash of many more on the layers beneath.

_That didn't help Rosethorn, did it?_

Niko cleared his throat. For the first time, Briar noticed the wear about him. His embroidered linens were rumpled and his shoulder-length hair hung about his broad shoulders – startling for such a reed-thin man – in a sad state of disarray. There was a vulnerable quality about him, present in his shadowed, craggy face and in the dark circles under his intense eyes.

Niko cleared his throat. For the first time, Briar noticed the wear about him. His embroidered linens were rumpled and his shoulder-length hair hung about his broad shoulders – startling for such a reed-thin man – in a sad state of disarray. There was a vulnerable quality about him, present in his shadowed, craggy face and in the dark circles under his intense eyes.

Briar's throat constricted.

"We need to talk." Good breeding – and the thin ward Briar had drawn – dictated that Niko would not step in the room without permission.

"No, we _don't_." The hot retort was broken by the waver and crack of his voice.

"Briar..."

The boy ignored him, even knowing that it was childish and sullen, but, Loki, who did Niklaren Goldeye think he was? Between the closed door and the _shavit_ ward, people ought to understand that he wanted to be alone, especially after...

"Supper will be ready in a few minutes."

They were thinking about food? "Not hungry."

Niko made a noise of disgust in his throat, something Briar had never heard from him before, and retrieved a squat jar from his pocket. "This is really quite ridiculous, Briar." His words came out sharply, which was rare – usually he was a gentleman of eloquence and clever bribery. Briar had nearly forgotten that the man was an academic mage – and a skilled one at that. The thin silver sheet of the magical ward flickered and faded as it was disabled.

"I came here to find Lark for those bandages." He seized Briar's ear, something that the boy suspected made him feel in control of a situation, which he so often was and was accustomed to being. "Rather I arrived _here_ – " Long, thin fingers twisted with surprising strength; the young boy jerked away, fury welling within him at Goldeye's restraint. "To find Sandriline in tears, yourself barricaded in your bedroom, and an acolyte from the water temple in the kitchen, making supper."

_He doesn't know. _The realization was quickly shoved aside. Niko was one of the best Seers on the continent, perhaps even the world, never uniformed. He could send Lark a long, dull letter from Yanjing, scolding the children for something that they would have done by the time the letter arrived in Emelan, his educated handwriting never showing emotion, each character neatly spaced and tightly coiled. If Niko could manage that great precision, there was no way, not in all the hells, that he could not know _this_.

_He's got to be doing this on purpose. _"You're a bastard." Briar flared, furious the man would play at ignorance. He crossed the room in a few, brisk steps, slamming the heavy door behind him. The latch struck against the wood of the doorframe, a hollow sound that ground against him, discordant in his bones.


	3. Chapter Two

1**Aeternum Vale**

**Chapter Two**

Sandry was up on the thatched roof, curled into a miserable ball, her hunched shoulders visibly trembling. _Wonderful. Even your sanctuary isn't yours anymore._ She shifted as Briar clambered out of the narrow casement, stealing a glance at him, allowing the boy to catch sight of the fading yellow that was rapidly turning a violent shade of violet.

"Hi," she said softly, touching on the newfound discomfort between them. She ducked her head as if in shame (but she was shameless, wasn't she, Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, who knew nothing of fear), sun-streaked locks the color of honey falling forward to half-hide her face, to obscure the bruising.

"'Lo," Briar muttered in return, sitting on the ragged brown tarp stretched over the thatch. The rain had not even broken yet, but this side of the house was so strongly protected by wards and charm that the rain filtered through in a fine mist. He recalled -- distantly, as if through a thin veil -- watching Lark and...her draw a spell, nearly a year past.

"_What's all this?"_ He had demanded, a street rat masquerading as a lord.

"_A ward,"_ Lark had answered, looking entirely too innocent. _"To keep magic out." _

"_Or in," _she had murmured, inscrutable.

"Briar?"

Sandry.

_Of course. It's bleedin' always Sandry._

This sharp anger with

(_the girl who had pulled him away_)

his friend was rare, all but unheard of. She was annoying at times, always able to get under his skin, but he was never outright angry. "Yeah?" It came out _yeh, _as spoke the street kids in this town, the ones that always lingered a moment too long when he detached himself from them, falling into step beside Tris, reluctant to leave a shop selling used, musty books with cracked bindings, or the cart, now empty from its sojourn to Urda's House, their eyes blazing with envy that he could shed that part of himself like a disguise and return to home while they could not.

"I..."

Sapphire eyes met jade, and he was the first to lower his gaze and turn away. He had never seen such blue eyes before he had met her, just the browns of his home land and the icy grays and wintry blue of the foreigners. Rosethorn's eyes had been a sharp hazel, so much like the snap and crack of a fragile twig in the winter's initial frost. Damn it all to hell, did everything have to remind him of the one thing he was trying to avoid thinking about?

"Here." Sandry's voice was like he had never heard it before: curt and brusque and raw. She thrust a silk scrap in his hands, a ghastly echo of months before. Her chin wavered. "You need it."


	4. Chapter Three

A fire, raging and burning with fury, stretched across the horizon, filling him with pain – sharp, shooting agony that came in burst as embers leapt up to matchstick tree trunks from the carpet of mast, burning, consuming, decimating.

"Pretty, huh?" A familiar drawl asked and he whirled around to see Flick, only Flick as he had never seen her. She appeared clean and well-fed, her features no longer drawn and thin. Her form, still all knees and elbows and wrists, was draped in embroidered silk – crimson fabric stitched with gold – lending a rosy hue to her flesh.

She looked at him with warm eyes, and he remembered clinging to her still form, trying to pour his energy into her blood. It seemed so distant and far gone. All that existed was the here and now.

"_Pretty_?" He repeated, a note of incredulity entering his voice.

This might have been his delirium, but, surely, it was Flick's as well – why else would she pause to spin in the lavish garment she would never be able to own? The scarlet skirt flared, catching the waves of heat rolling off of the inferno. Her hand grazed his. "You don't think so?"

"It's lovely." Sarcasm dripped from his words.

She laughed, laughed until she choked.

Then she laughed again, because she did not ever have to worry about all of the smoke in the air again.

"Come for a walk with me," she said instead, lowering herself off the stone bridge – wide and open – that they stood upon. Her sandal shod feet sought cracks in the stone to use as steps, but Briar, in a single, fluid motion leapt from the cobblestone to the barren creek bed below, where dead leaves and pine cones and broken twigs and probably animal waste had accumulated. He landed in an easy crouch beside her, offering a hand to assist, which she ignored with as much dignity as could be mustered, claiming, "I'm not one of your pretty little maids from school."

"'Course not," he responded, feeling a smile twist his mouth. It startled him.

It _hurt _walking through the flames. The pain ebbed and faded – which it oughtn't, as the swath of destruction never ceased, never relented. The girl seemed immune to the tides that assaulted him; she walked serenely, occasionally turning 'round to face him – hands laced behind her head – as she moved.

"You're not too good at this, huh?" She asked knowingly.

"Never." He ground his teeth against the ache.

She reached out, as if to offer her dark, unmarred hand to him (_hadn't it been covered in sores_?)…Wrong. This was wrong. As he watched, the softness left her face, leaving her gaunt and harsh, the joy leaving her eyes, the air filled with the scent of rotting flesh…

That was the exact instant that he woke up.


	5. Chapter Four

_A little more lighthearted this time. And the first time from a perspective that isn't Briar's. Cheers, mate. _

**Aeternum Vale**

**Neko Kuroban**

Tris stepped into the darkened room, caution in her step. Academic mages tended to be steeped in beliefs about thieves roaming in places other than the metropolises they tended to frequent, where there was gold to be had and pockets to fill. What if there were wards drawn? However, she met no resistance.

"Sir?" She called out. Her voice echoed back to her, bouncing off the smooth oak-paneled walls. She hated the high note of uncertainty she heard there. It caused her to sound childlike and fragile – two things that she was not (_could not afford to be_).

Her eyes had adjusted to the lack of light enough to recognize the looming shape along the far side of the room as a four-poster bed, hung with tapestries. The thick carpet was not black as she had originall anticipated, rather it was a deep, rich blue. Her father rarely dealt in plush, but she knew it would be worth a great deal. This building was, after all, Pearl Cup, where the daughters and sons of Emelan's wealthy nobles and the Circle's honored guests resided. It seemed a shame to trespass…at least, in the same shoes she had worn to cross the damp winding roads, still wet from the week's constant rainfall.

She slipped out of the soft, comfortable moccasins that had been a gift for her eleventh birthday. The funeral would be held tonight at midnight, but people had started arriving several days before: all sorts of curious, worldly men and women, a number of them from the University of Lightsbridge, but others too, including a woman Rosethorn's age with a jagged scar running along her face, from her temple to her cheek, and a fourteen-year-old son in tow.

Even a Trader man had arrived at Discipline cottage the night before to pay respects. He had bowed very deeply to Lark (before kissing her swiftly on either cheek), before his eyes flickered to Daja. At last, he turned to the girl and lowered his head in a sign of respect, though not as low nor as long as he held it for Lark: he held it exactly three seconds, at a forty-five degree angle. Tris had come to recognize that as the polite gesture Traders made when introducing themselves to one another, and she had not missed the small smile that formed on Daja's lips.

But this man – the one she had been sent to fetch (not that Tris had raised much protest; Lark was _fraying_ if such a thing might be said – trying to keep the biggest pieces of herself together while the rest of her came apart) was the one that fascinated her the most. He was a large, broad man, with narrow hips and wide shoulders. He wore his silver hair tamed in a thick rope down his back, his gray beard neatly trimmed to emphasize the strong line of his jaw. He dressed not like a mage but a merchant in a silk waistcoat and breeches beneath his heavy travel cloak, the formal style her own father had favored, the sort Tris knew enough to know whispered of quiet wealth without being ostentatious. He acted like Niko with his cool, cultured mannerisms, but something more than that had intrigued her:

He was Rosethorn and Crane's _teacher. _

She had always known the plant mages were intelligent – she had seen both of them listed in a great number of recent books, as she had several of the other teachers, and she had stumbled across a brilliant thesis on ambient magic months ago when she and the others had first discovered their powers. She would have never known the author, except the name on the byline in illuminated text looked vaguely familiar.

Tris had asked Lark, who had leaned over her shoulder to eye the informally bound pages. "_You're reading _that_, love?_" She had asked, sounding faintly impressed. "_Rosethorn wrote it for a university thesis. She was working mostly from theory and her own experiences then, of course…they don't set an incredible amount of stock in ambient magic – academics, I mean. Her own teacher had a draft of it published without telling her._" Lark straightened, brushing a stray glossy curl behind her ear. "_You should ask her for the final draft sometime. She finished it a few months after that, and I think there's a copy in the library._"

Lark had smiled then, and there was something resembling pride in her voice, yes, but also something truer and deeper, something so powerful it scared her to think about. That was when Tris realized that her assumption that Lark cared for Rosethorn like she would care for a student or a younger sister was completely, irreversibly wrong.

So, yes, she had recognized that Rosethorn was brilliant, and she respected Crane a great deal more for his genius than his wealth or his sparse praise of her – which, she had been told, was lavish for him. However, she had never truly realized how much so until she had spent the past week in the greenhouse-cum-laboratory, taking noted as the toiled. Ideas came easily, and every movement was time-honed and precise. She had been surprised by their dedication, as well as their banter. One morning as they were setting up, she had overheard Crane mention that he had been dreaming of cures; Rosethorn had laughed, pushing off the hood of her over robe. As beads of rainwater fell to the smooth marble floor, she confessed that she had been as well – and Tris decided (even as her inner romantic sighed wistfully at the way Crane's brown eyes softened) that that level of commitment, of passion, was something she admired.

She certainly could not pass up a chance to meet their teacher.

"Sir?" She called out again, hearing a rustling sound. _Strange, _she mused, _that sounds almost like it were coming from…_

"Sir?" A high-pitched voice mimicked.

This time there was no doubt about it: the rustling was coming from behind the thick velvet draperies. _Oh, gods. What if I walked in and he's not dressed? _She had to smirk at the mental image of a man who had to be nearly sixty hiding behind a curtain from a girl many decades his junior. She took hold of the fabric, feeling absolutely foolish, and pulled it aside.

Brilliant gold sunlight flooded Pearl Cup's guest chambers with unyielding illumination, revealing the fox hunt depicted on the elaborate tapestries, the detailed carvings adorning the wall panels… and the bright scarlet and gold feathers of the parrot perched on the windowsill.

She (for this creature was certainly a she) cocked her head at Tris.

"Oh!" Her breath caught in her throat, and then she chuckled. "Hullo." The bird hopped in response, and she reached out a finger – nails mangled and bitten as usual – to stroke its crested forehead. "Aren't you pretty?"

Tucking its – her – head beneath a richly hued wing, it edged away from her and then _tumbled_, rolling along the broad wooden ledge until it knocked up against a potted plant.

Actually, she realized when she spared it a glance, it was not a plant, but a tree in miniature, like Briar had. Only this was not nearly as well-tended. Twigs and leaves burst from everywhere and it seemed snarled, trapped in its basin. Were they supposed to be that deep? Briar kept his in a long, shallow dish. In this one, the silver of magic did not glitter when she looked at it.

"You silly little thing," Tris chided the bird gently, picking the poor thing up in her hands. She ran her thumb over the creature's back, wings, underbelly, checking cautiously for fragile bones that might have snapped. It was something Rosethorn had taught her for Shriek, once the starling had started attempting to fly. "Mad little fledge."

There was the sound of a door opening across the room, and she turned, bird in hand, to see the professor, ostensibly having just risen from the bath, trying to pull the other sleeve of his robe on.

She averted her eyes and whirled to face the wall, but, because that didn't seem to be enough, she muttered an apology and strode out. A beautiful, barefoot woman in a shabby dress swept past Tris on the stairs, leaving the girl in a cloud of cheap rose scent. Tris blushed, not stopping for anything until she reached the cottage that had become home.

"He was nude," she told Daja curtly as she crossed the threshold, "And old, and I've forgotten my shoes."

"Anything else?"

"I forgot to deliver the message. Also, I've stolen his bird, if it counts."

"…Wait. _What_?"


End file.
